Index – Culture – Star Baritone arrives in Budapest, brings his own band
The star baritone, Thomas Hampson, who is considered the most famous American singer, performed at the Müpa on October 12th during the Flour Festival. He has become world-famous mainly for his singing and opera roles, with about 150 albums, several baritones this time singing Schubert and Liszt works by his own band, the Orchester Wiener Akademie, conducted by Martin Haselböck.
It is a great pleasure for me that the new festival of Budapest already defines itself as the spiritual heirs of Ferenc Liszt, and I am proud to be one of the contributors to the first Liszt Festival with my band, the Orchester Wiener Akademie. As a Liszt researcher and, for decades, the composer’s operations lecturer, I consider this legacy, which has decided on intellectual openness, to be extraordinary. Liszt was the first European romantic to rely on the traditions of his own country, unlike other great composers such as Wagner and Brahms, but also, to name just one example, on the French musical heritage.
The Liszt Festival, the Liszt Festival International Cultural Festival, which starts on October 8 and runs until October 24, is a brand new cultural event, an international festival launched for some time, on the occasion of the 210th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
How intense Hampson meets Schubert is also convinced in this video.